


Take A Break

by WildWolf25



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, Exhaustion, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, I know hurt/comfort is a tag but this is more worry than hurt, Pidge is StressedTM and Lance is a good pseudo-brother, Sleepovers, platonic, worry/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 18:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11995953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildWolf25/pseuds/WildWolf25
Summary: They drew a shuddering breath and released it.  “And no matter what I do, no matter how much code I write or what kind of enhancements I make or how many numbers I crunch in whatever way… none of this looks good for us.  None of it.  And… I’m scared.  I’m terrified, and I don’t know what to do besides keep trying to make more improvements to the lions, decrypt more Galra tech, do more even though I know that what I’m doing will barely even make a dent.”  They sniffed and leaned into his hold more.  “Why does the universe have to be so big?”  They asked, voice watery.Lance hugged them from the side and rubbed their opposite arm.  “I don’t have an answer for that.”  He said quietly.“None of us do.”  Pidge groused.  “That’s the problem.”Lance took a deep breath.  “I’m scared too.  We’re all scared.”(Lance finds Pidge working late again due to stress, and does what he can to help)





	Take A Break

**Author's Note:**

> Ya boy's back with another platonic pidgance comfort fic.

Lance found Pidge in the room they had commandeered as their lab, sitting on the floor surrounded by a mess of books and papers and bits of tech.  They had long since bypassed the desk, as even the two large desks against the wall had soon become too full of research to use anymore and they instead spread everything out on the floor where they could see it.  The one time Hunk called it a “mess”, Pidge had forcibly removed him from the room by steering Rover’s pointed edges into him repeatedly and telling him that it wasn’t a  _ mess _ , it had a detailed organization system that made  _ perfect sense  _ to them and if he couldn’t appreciate the chaotic brilliance of it, he could  _ get out _ .  So the rest of them refrained from calling it as such (to their face, at least).  

‘Mess’ or not, it was around 3:35 AM CST (Castle-Ship Time, which they were all fully-adjusted to after so long in space), and Lance knew that Pidge ought to be in bed, sleeping, and not hunched over their laptop on the cold floor with a pencil behind their ear and no fewer than six empty coffee mugs sitting off to their right.  

“Hey,” he called softly as he entered the room, because the one time Lance had accidentally snuck up on them had ended with him very narrowly avoiding being stabbed by a pencil to the hand.  Pidge -- all of them, actually -- did not take kindly to surprises, anymore.  Not after this war.  

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”  Pidge asked, reaching for another holopad and zooming in on the projected star map before typing something on their laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard.   

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”  Lance said, stopping just on the edge of their ring of ‘chaotically brilliant’ sprawl of books.  “Planning on going to bed at all tonight?”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”  Pidge replied.  Anyone else, and he would think they were kidding or exaggerating.  But he had seen Pidge run themselves into the ground before, and once even to the point of needing to be put in the healing pod because they had ‘forgotten’ to eat or sleep for four consecutive days.  

“Pidge, come on,” Lance carefully stepped around a pile of dismantled machines and moved a heavy book written in Altean off to the side so he could take a seat next to them.  “Even with all that space coffee, you’ve got to be exhausted, right?  I know you pulled an all-nighter last night, too.”  

“I’ve got a ton of stuff to do.”  Pidge reasoned.  

“What’cha working on?”  Lance asked, resting his chin on their shoulder and winding an arm around their waist.  Over the course of their time as paladins, the five of them had steadily grown more and more comfortable with each other, to the point where team cuddle sessions were a must following particularly trying battles, all of them smelling like soap from their post-battle showers and sometimes iodine as they treated cuts, always taking comfort in the warm, living, breathing bodies around them, both because it meant the lives of their friends were safe, and reassurance that they were alive themselves.

“Stuff.”  Pidge said, glancing between the hologram map and their laptop as they typed.  

“Stuff can wait until tomorrow.”  He said.  

“Not this stuff.”  Pidge said.

“What kind of stuff?”

“...Important stuff.”  Pidge faltered, and Lance could almost see their armor cracking.  He hugged them a little tighter and rubbed their side.

“What’s wrong?”  He asked, his voice quiet.  

He felt, rather than saw, Pidge’s shoulders droop as they sighed with resignation.  “I can’t sleep.”  They were quiet for a few moments, and when they next spoke, their voice had lost its usual hard edge, betraying their fatigue and worry.  “It’s just… the Galra Empire is so  _ vast _ .  It’s practically the whole known universe, and that’s even bigger than we ever imagined it to be back on Earth.  And yeah, we’ve liberated a couple planets, but at huge costs; we barely escaped with our lives, some of those times.  Every one of those battles pushes us to the limit, and at the rate we’re going, it’ll take…” they paused to pull up another screen on their computer, full of glowing numbers and complicated mathematical equations.  “...another five-thousand six-hundred and twenty-six years to free the remainder of the planets and asteroid systems the Galra have colonized.  And that’s  _ without  _ factoring in them reclaiming planets after we’ve freed them.”  They turned to him.  “We’re going to be fighting life-or-death battles every single day for the  _ rest of our lives _ , Lance.”  

They broke eye contact with him, rubbing the edge of their sleeve over their eye.  “And everything we’ve learned about their technology is… well, scary, honestly.  Not only do their have robeasts and cyborg enhancement prosthetics, they have ion cannons that can  _ literally destroy small planets _ .  Just wipe them out, reduce them to space rubble.  And they’re aiming them  _ right at us _ .  That’s… that’s terrifying.  Not to mention, we don’t even know what their full arsenal is; they could have even worse weapons out there.  Nuclear weapons, biological warfare… There’s just so much we don’t even know.”  They drew a shuddering breath and released it.  “And no matter what I do, no matter how much code I write or what kind of enhancements I make or how many numbers I crunch in whatever way… none of this looks good for us.  None of it.  And… I’m scared.  I’m terrified, and I don’t know what to do besides keep trying to make more improvements to the lions, decrypt more Galra tech, do more even though I know that what I’m doing will barely even make a dent.”  They sniffed and leaned into his hold more.  “Why does the universe have to be so  _ big _ ?”  They asked, voice watery.  

Lance hugged them from the side and rubbed their opposite arm.  “I don’t have an answer for that.”  He said quietly.

“None of us do.”  Pidge groused.  “That’s the problem.”  

Lance took a deep breath.  “I’m scared too.  We’re all scared.”  They all had different ways of coping, different tasks to hide behind to either distract them or make them feel like they were doing something worthwhile.  Shiro went over strategy and tactics with Allura and then even more on his own.  Keith wore himself into the ground on the training deck, trying to prepare for the enemies they so frequently encountered in hopes of staying alive and keeping his teammates alive for even just one more day.  Hunk focused on mechanical maintenance of his lion or distracted himself through the precise measurements of baking and cooking in the kitchen, keeping his mind from dwelling on the horrors that loomed over them.  Pidge threw all their energy into their own work for the same reason.  And Lance?  He just tried to get by.  He helped the others with their work or training or even knitting sweaters to stockpile for rescued prisoners.  He flitted from activity to activity, unable to stay on one task for too long.  The moment the movements became automatic, something he didn’t have to consciously focus on, that was when the negativity, the doubts, the fears… that was when the darkness always became too much, and he had to run from it by moving on to the next task.

“Take a break, Pidge,”  Lance told them softly, squeezing their arm.  

“I can’t,” Pidge shook their head and reached for their laptop again.  “I have to--”

“You have to sleep.”  Lance said, gently but firmly closing his fingers around their wrist.  “You can’t possibly be working efficiently at this point.  The bags under your eyes would get tagged as over-weight luggage on an airplane, and I don’t even know when was the last time you ingested something that wasn’t space coffee.  If you keep this up, Coran is going to stick you in a pod again.  Take a break.”  

Pidge was silent for a few minutes, as though debating the merits of arguing with him versus giving in.  In the end, though, they slumped against him.  “Fine.  Just let me save my work.”  

Lance smiled and let go of their wrist.  They leaned forward and tapped a few commands into their computer to save their work, paused, and then saved it once more just for good measure.  It took them a few minutes to reach around themselves and turn off all the little glowing tablets, machines, holopads, and other bits of tech, but eventually the hum that had been filling the air faded into silence and the only light came from the open door to the hall.  Pidge picked up their laptop, grimacing as they carefully flipped it upside down.  “Ugh, this thing keeps overheating.  I’m going to have to replace the cooling system again.”  

“Probably from over-use.”  Lance said.

“No quiznak, Sherlock.”  Pidge muttered.  “Tell me something I don’t know.”  

“I can think of one other thing that’s breaking down from over-use, too.”  Lance said, rubbing their back.  

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve made your point.”  Pidge groused, getting to their feet, joints popping from stiffness.  They paused, bent over with their hands on their knees, swaying slightly.  

“Pidge?”  Lance tilted his head as he studied their motionless form, worried.  

“Gimme a sec.  I just… stood up too fast or something…” They trailed off, slowly straightening up.  Their eyes weren’t entirely focused.  

“When did you last eat?”  Lance asked, frowning.  

“...Lunch.”  They glanced at him and noticed his doubtful look.  “...of yesterday.”  

Lance sighed and crouched down in front of them.  “Alright, come on, up you get.”  

“You don’t have to.”  Pidge hesitated, but the hand that found its way to his shoulder told him that they needed the help balancing.  

“I don’t, but I want to.”  Lance said.  “Come on.”  

It didn’t take much more persuading than that for them to climb onto his back, linking their arms around his shoulders.  Lance stood up, bearing their weight easily.  Paladin training plus a lifetime of carrying younger siblings around gave him a lot of practice.

“Can we have a sleepover?”  Pidge asked as he walked them over to the door.  

“Absolutely.”  Lance replied.  He paused next to the door for Pidge to turn off the light.  “How else would I make sure you don’t sneak back to work in the middle of the night?”

“I won’t.”  Pidge promised.  He felt a weight against the base of his neck as they laid their head down.  “I just don’t really want to be alone.”

“You’re not,” Lance reassured them, making a beeline for the kitchen.  “You’ve got all of us.”

“You do, too, you know.”  Pidge said quietly.  Lance smiled and gave the back of their knee a squeeze where he was holding it, a silent thanks.  Sometimes they needed to be reminded of that, even as they reminded the others themselves.

Once they were in the kitchen, Lance pushed the cryo-fridge open with his foot and squatted down.  “Alright, arms, grab a couple of those food-goo gogurt things.  One for me, and however many you think you need.”  

“You could just put me down.”  Pidge giggled, letting go with one hand to reach into the fridge.  In one of his earlier experiments, Hunk had succeeded in making what was essentially a nutrient-packed version of the food-goo and packaged it in plastic tube-like packaging, basically creating a high-powered version of the gogurts they had back home as kids.  Coran had protested that he didn’t understand the  _ point _ , why bother making to-go versions of the food that could just as easily be eaten properly at the table…. But the rest of the paladins loved them, as they were incredibly useful for grabbing food on the go.  

“I could,” Lance said, waiting until they had grabbed three of the space-gogurts before standing up in a  _ grand plié _ his sister would be proud of.  “But I don’t want to.”  He pushed the fridge door closed with his foot again and headed for the lounge.  

Following the discovery that the couches actually had storage space underneath them, the paladins had filled the compartments with an assortment of extra pillows and blankets for the explicit purpose of sleepovers, both team-bonding ones and others.  There were plenty of nights when someone felt too restless to settle down or too lonely or homesick to sleep alone, which led to them transforming the lounge into what was essentially a communal sleeping area.  

Finally setting Pidge down, Lance pulled out a couple blankets and pillows while Pidge tore into the first of their space-gogurts.  The two of them laid down on the couches, heads together like middle-school friends at a slumber party in someone’s basement back home, rather than battle-weary warriors with too much weight on their shoulders for someone so young.  They turned off the lights and laid down, leaning their elbows on their pillows and eating their food while whispering ideas about what kind of dirt the space mice had probably picked up on everyone, because no sleepover was complete without snacks and gossip.  It only took them a few minutes to finish eating, and they left their wrappers on the floor beside their makeshift beds and went to sleep, feeling reassured and safe in each other’s company. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha who’s getting nervous about missiles being launched frightfully close to their town and doesn’t know what to do except finding catharsis through projecting onto fictional characters? NOT ME! NOPE! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ *finger-guns away as the town loudspeakers turn on for the fourth time in a week* 
> 
> But I mean, this is a thing I think at least one of the paladins would find themselves thinking about at some point during the war against Zarkon. That's some heavy stuff to toss a bunch of teenagers into.


End file.
